The Independent Union of Employees in Pension Insurance and the Workers’ Union of HZMO announced today a protest during the next week, when they will call their members to a ‘white strike’, that is, to slow down business processes, as the pension supplement was removed from their collective agreement.
Negotiations on a new collective agreement for 3,032 employees in HZMO have concluded as it was initialed by two minority unions operating in the Institute, and we refused to sign the collective agreement because we were bound by the result of a referendum conducted among our members who said ‘no’ to the abolition of the pension supplement, said union leaders Željka Frgačić and Višnja Stanišić.
They reminded that in HZMO, employee expenses in 2011 amounted to 347 million kuna, in 2012 they were reduced to 329 million kuna, and for 2013 a further reduction to 282 million kuna is planned.
HZMO is the only public service that has implemented a restructuring program that has reduced the number of employees by more than 10 percent compared to December 2008. The average salary in the Institute with all supplements paid in November was 5,424 kuna, of which for VSS it was 7,197 kuna, for VŠS 5,474 kuna, for SSS 4,405 kuna, and for NSS 3,318 kuna.
In HZMO, salaries were reduced by 27 to even 50 percent about ten years ago, but it quickly became evident that under such conditions the functioning of the Institute was impossible, so salary supplements were agreed upon to at least partially alleviate the injustice towards the officials, emphasize the union presidents.
At that time, supplements of 8 percent for special working conditions and from 2 to 10 percent for seniority were agreed upon, and without these supplements, the average salary in HZMO would amount to only 4,850 kuna.
